


Homing Pidgeons, Artic Terns

by Anonymous



Series: Of Ground, or Air, or Ought [2]
Category: yin yang master, 阴阳师 | Yīn Yáng Shī | The Yin-yang Master (Movies - Guo Jingming)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern: Still Have Powers, Asexuality, M/M, Mad Painter is obsessed with drawing Snow Hound, Modern AU, Old Married Couple, Platonic Life Partners, Slice of Life, Snow Hound likes companionship, Uncles, Wings, no beta we die like half the people in this movie, offscreen bird violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-27 23:46:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30130725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: A day drawn out in charcoal and ink.  A day measured from laughter to laughter.Three acts of attention paid in full.
Relationships: Kuang Hua Shi | Mad Painter/Xue Tian Gou | Snow Hound
Series: Of Ground, or Air, or Ought [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2191281
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11
Collections: Anonymous





	Homing Pidgeons, Artic Terns

The apartment made Mad Painter ansty sometimes. So much of it had his thumbprint on it, nevermind Snow Hound was the one to tetris his art up and down the halls, across the living room into what was once Mad Painter's room and in the entryway. The only places that were mostly art free were the bathroom (the orchid painting only), the kitchen (the multimedia piece out of broken porcelain, and the painting of the goat that Snow Hound loved). There was his art, his studio space, his paint smeared on the back of Snow Hound's neck, his art pieces sold to benefit the sect.

Never mind it was Mad Painter who wanted them to have the same apartment, that crawled into Snow Hound's room, that slid into his bed.

He wanted people to look at their pretty fairyland apartment and see Snow Hound, to see them. To see and know that they were two strokes with one brush, two birds on the same wing.

"Are you sure?" Master asked for about the ten thousandth time. It was a pretty good piece of a storm tossed sea. It had received the seal of approval last night, Snow Hound's large eyes drifting over the foam tossed up along the tips of the wave.

"We don't have room for it," Mad Painter said. "And I'm just going to keep painting. Art is meant to be shared."

"Alright," Master allowed, that slow soft smile of his like everything was a reminder of an unfortunate memory. There was the sound of young laughter, then a fluttering at the window and a flash of white and Snow Hound landed softly with a giggling A-Ming held carefully in his arms, the soft braid of Snow Hound's hair a curl of clouds from an old painting before it came back down to earth with him. Mad Painter's hands clawed with the urge to paint: it would be an old fashioned ink with curling clouds from one end of the page to the other.

A-Ming's face was elevated with laughter, plump and gleeful with his ponytail in disarray. "We saw Thunder Fall!" he said and held up an enormous bronze feather.

Mad Painter looked over Snow Hound but the guardian was as pristine as ever, his mouth slanting.

"We may have buzzed him," Snow Hound said as he set A-Ming down.

The guardian was usually so prudent, Mad Painter worried about what had caused him to go after the much bigger tengu especially with A-Ming in his arms.

A-Ming wrapped his arms around himself and spun fast, fast, fast. "We went like this! Down and then woosh!" He leapt with his arms upraised. "Fwip! Up, up!"

Master knelt down to A-Ming's level and gave him a brief pat on the head. "That sounds exciting."

There was still something mild and almost sleepy about his voice. There had been for a long time, ever since Fangyue.

Master stood up again, his hands folding in front of him. "The mayor called the sect for another meeting about infrastructure support. While I’m there, do I need to talk to Master Xie?" Master asked in that placid way of his.

Smiling, Snow Hound shook his head, "I'm fine."

Snow Hound was shaped delicately, adamantine wrought work, but he had an elegant strength to him, a ferocity unbroken. A thousand times before his wings had tucked and snapped and furled and never so much as broken a feather. How lovely, what a thing to frantically smear across black paper with white pencil. Mad Painter's hands ached, there was a twitch in his jaw. If he just captured the way Snow Hound's feathers suddenly shifted, the way they turned to a new angle... He grit his teeth to shake himself out of it. Thunder Fall was not elegant and lovely, he punched and smashed his way across the horizon line. He was huge and he was brutal.

Mad Painter stepped forward to stand nearer to Snow Hound to sweep his gaze over him to check for broken feathers or irregularities in posture that might mean hidden injuries. There were none, thankfully, at least none apparent.

"Is the mayor asking for bureaucratic support, or for a master to join the police force?" Snow Hound asked straightening up, his wings curling up in the way they did when he was talking official business.

Mundane and Sect governance was fairly split, but there was overlap. Their favorite noodle shop was mundane and the closest mundane school was on sect land. Everyone once in a while someone in the mundane government would make noise that the sect should do more, take on more responsibilities.

"Master Hei knocked a demon into a prominent citizen's garden. They want to talk repairs, it will be a good experience for the older disciples. But I feel it's also an excuse to ask for someone to join the police force. Ironically, probably Master Hei."

A-Ming's head tilted in a charming gesture. "No lessons today?"

Sect leader in all but name.

"I'll be taking Golden Spirit and Plum Blossom," Master said. "Will the two of you mind Qingming?"

"It would be a pleasure," Snow Hound bowed.

"Very good," Master said. "Qingming. Be sure to practice what you've learned."

They went through their goodbyes, half-hearted from Qingming who clearly didn't want Master to go without him, and elegant from Snow Hound. Snow Hound pulled out the cards from the drawer in the coffee table and started to deal. Cards would be a good calming game to get A-Ming even keeled again.

At the door, Master turned to Mad Painter. "Qingming has been trying to find his mother again."

Mad Painter tensed. "Has he-?" Mad Painter started and then stopped.

"His hope is too strong. He hasn't figured anything out. His mother was very clever. If anyone could evade detection it's her. And it's motivational."

That wasn't untrue.

"We'll kept that in mind," Mad Painter assured him.

After the disciples came to take away the painting and A-Ming was occupied, Mad Painter hurried to Snow Hound with too many minutes of bound in energy. He held him by the waist, measured him by the hand.

"Worried?" Snow Hound asked.

"I like your shape," Mad Painter replied.

Snow Hound's mouth on his cheek felt like a string of bursting epiphanies.

"What really happened? What did he do?" Mad Painter asked.

"Don't worry, don't worry," Snow Hound said, letting himself be manhandled into the curve of Mad Painter’s arms. "We just had a bit of a territorial disagreement. I took offense because he did it while I was carrying A-Ming. He regretted it, and if he does it again he’ll learn to regret it even more."

The first night Mad Painter had slept with Snow Hound had been after they had fought the boar demon outside of that primary school. Afterward the children had clustered around Snow Hound, too polite to touch his wings and pull on his clothes until he had smiled and knelt and then been swarmed. He let them climb on and off his knee, explore his feathers, barrage his with questions, their little hands pulling on his coat for attention as if the demon hadn't slammed him against the wall several time The teacher had shifted nervously at Master Zhong's side.

Master Zhong had only smiled, "He's very good with children. Tengu are very protective."

He had been, ready to take to the air immediately when he saw there was a school involved. Golden Spirit over soothing the staff while Master Zhong had spoken to Officer Shen - their liaison.

All that Mad Painter could see - over and over in his head - was Snow Hound slamming spread winged against the wall of the building, before his face burned with cold intensity and he'd seized the demon by the face. When they were sent back home he had drawn that face over and over until his jaw uncleanched and his brow unfurrowed and he'd lost track of time. It wasn't that he was trying to go to Snow Hound in the night, only that when he'd gone to him it had been night and the air had been full of stars, and fireflies, and peach blossoms.

He'd stood in the doorway with his arms full of a teapot and of herbs and of soft fluffy cloths and just looked, just couldn't stop looking. With a rustle, Snow Hound had turned and given him a look burning with cold. His wing curved up for him to peer under in a composition of shape and line that made Mad Painter want to weep.

"I don't like sex," Snow Hound had told him after a long moment, quiet and frank and brooking no argument. "I'm not going to have it with you."

It occurred to Mad Painter that he had been less than subtle. "You were hurt," he said instead. "And I've been in my room drawing. I don't like sex either."

"What do you like?" Snow Hound asked, canny and wary.

"You."

Snow Hound had allowed him to enter, to light incense, to rub an herbal tincture on his back - the muscles flexing around his wings were a beautiful study in power and motion. The downy feathers at the top of his wings were agonizing to look at. Mad Painter wanted to draw them in pastels, in charcoal. Snow Hound watched him carefully out of the corner of his eye but Mad Painter was careful to create a chiaroscuro of worship and comfort.

He had awoken to Snow Hound head on his shoulder, a hand curled up in a loose fist next to his cheek, a wing draped long over his middle.

The tengu looked fearsome in his sleep and he looked so content. A protector required something to protect in order to feel fulfillment. They needed companionship to soothe their vigilance with someone else's well being. And it felt good to touch, it felt good to have someone else pour the tea, it felt good to have someone groom the hard to reach feathers. Mad Painter had once thought... But no, that way led only to madness. The important thing now was slow and careful steps, a light sketch tracing the form of what they could one day be, the careful application of color with wash upon wash. He didn't know much about Snow Hound other than that he had a shrine in the mountains once until it had been forgotten, that like Golden Spirit he had asked to join Master Zhong. A person needed something to do to hold back the madness. Mad Painter had once ravened with his eye, coveted things that weren't his, had destroyed and devoured to try to capture the perfect world he wanted to exist. He didn't want that anymore. He wanted peace now, he wanted simple lines and soft colors.

Mad Painter could be protected, he could be a companion, he could touch. He didn't make the same mistake again. Snow Hound's care came first and after that the filled sketchbooks, the ink paintings, the watercolors, the charcoal figure studies.

He had been diligent and Snow Hound had been watchful and a week later Snow Hound had told Mad Painter he could move his things into his room if he wanted.

They flew to the park to give A-Ming a chance to run around. He'd been very well behaved in their little apartment. He was also coming along very well with his watercolor studies. Diligently working not to press too hard with his brush with the tip of his tongue sticking out between his teeth in concentration. Now A-Ming was running around in a loop between the climbing frame and the slide. The park was a favorite of Qingming's. There was enough cultural separation that even with the school being on sect land, most of the kids had no idea what Qingming was or even that he was sect adjacent. One of the older children would tell eventually, but for now Qingming was arranging everyone into some kind of game that seemed oddly similar to the training exercises that Golden Spirit ran for the Spirit Guardians.

Snow Hound tilted his face up, his face half covered under Mad Painter’s giant ‘don’t talk to me or my son’ sunglasses. His wings were spread and were sparkling like precious things, pearl and silver and ivory in the sunlight. The tengu was not a man who relaxed easily, he was a fretter, used to being proactive and productive. Flipping to a new page he worked on the thin, expressive curl of his upper lip - shaped like a whispered secret against a lover’s ear. Then the soft round of the bottom lip. Mad Painter's fingers were smeared in charcoal. He furiously sketched the perfect stretch and curl of that peaceful smile. If a mouth was too pursed, too pushed together it couldn’t smile like that. Snow Hound’s mouth pulled easily into any direction it needed to, infinite with its smiling variations, it’s subtle sadness, it’s unyielding bravery displayed in a slant or a twitch. Mad Painter had boxes of sketchbooks documenting the long curve of his nose, his square chin, the bones of his wrist, the line of his spine. He never quite got it right, it was never as lovely to look at as it was just to peer for a moment at Snow Hound.

Still he filled page after page, a compulsion toward beauty.

There was a shift of Snow Hound’s posture and a wing shifted to shadow Mad Painter.

“Hmm?” he asked in the vague way that still worked between them. Had he been caught staring again?

“I like it when you get freckles, I don’t like it when you burn. You’ve been bent over your sketchbook, you’ll burn the back of your neck and rub the burn raw with your robe collar,” Snow Hound told him.

“That’s sweet of you,” Mad Painter said just so he could watch Snow Hound lift his chin and stare off into the distance like he wasn’t affected, like he wasn’t bashful about compliments.

There was a burst of laughter from the playground.

"So," Mad Painter said, tracing the line of cheekbone to jaw across the page that captured dignity, but not the way his cheek fit in Mad Painter's palm. "Thunder Fall."

Snow Hound squinted at him and looked away again to where A-Ming was organizing a group of children into some kind of game. "You've been patient. I thought you were going to demand answers sooner."

"Hm," he answered because he knew it would make Snow Hound laugh.

Tilting his head up to the sky, so the red and the jewels under his eyes glowed on his pale skin, Snow Hound breathed out a sensible chuckle.

"Don't keep me in suspense."

"He saw I had A-Ming and he flew over me to push me down and then cut under me to knock me out of my air current," Snow Hound answered easily, like he was triaging after battle.

Mad Painter set down his charcoal so he didn't break anything.

"So I dived on him and pulled out one of his feathers," Snow Hound said, still not looking at him.

"What was he thinking?" Mad Painter snapped. "Did A-Ming realize what was happening?"

"I don't think so," Snow Hound said. "He wasn't scared, even when I dived."

"Master needs to have a talk with his master," Mad Painter pressed, which was better than saying I'm going to knock Thunder Fall out of the sky.

"Thunder Fall is odd," Snow Hound spoke a little too nonchalantly. "He thinks about things in odd ways, I don't know what he wants."

Mad Painter had suggestions of ways he found Thunder Fall wanting.

"I'll try to take care of matters first," Snow Hound said.

"Will you?" Mad Painter asked.

Snow Hound's wings flared and then tucked. The primaries were looking a little stiff, he should oil them tonight. His look was also flared.

"He's twice your size and so are his wings, a fistfight is one thing. That's training. But if he forces you to freeze him out of the sky there’s going to be trouble,” Mad Painter advised. Trouble for both of them. Mad Painter didn’t understand anything but obsession.

“Why are A-Ming’s clothes wet?” Snow Hound dodged as artfully as ever.

Mad Painter blinked and then turned to look where A-Ming seemed to be arguing with someone over a bucket. It looked like the arguing that could shift into pushing - and frankly A-Ming got enough of that back at the sect. He let out a sharp high whistle.

A-Ming pivoted toward them before Mad Painter had finished whistling and pelted across the playground toward them, something in his hands. He ran full speed into Snow Hound’s side with the confidence of someone who’d done it a million times before and had been caught every time. Arm curled around Snow Hound’s neck, A-Ming all but leaned off him. As though an involuntary instinct like breathing, Snow Hound’s wing curled around A-Ming to hold him close and protected. There was something in A-Ming’s free hand as he quickly told them about the creek he found and the friend he found and they wanted to put the friend in a bucket but he wouldn’t let them.

Snow Hound held A-Ming’s hand still with the heartbreakingly gentle grip he always used with the boy to reveal that the flopping shape was a frog wearing a hat and a slightly traumatized expression.

“Gentle hands,” Snow Hound told him. “You must be careful. Your new friend is much smaller than you are. Shaking him around like that could hurt him.”

A-Ming frowned. “But I don’t want to hurt him. He’s my friend. I didn’t want them to put him in a bucket. You wouldn’t put Mad Painter in a bucket would you.”

The frog started up at them plaintively.

Mad Painter tried not to laugh, he felt it might ruin the lesson.

“No, I wouldn’t put Mad Painter in a bucket. I would also avoid shaking him up and down like that,” Snow Hound said very seriously. “You’re a vigorous person, your whole life you’re going to run into people who are smaller than you, or weaker than you, or less than you somehow. You must be careful with them. You must be gentle and watchful.”

“Oh,” A-Ming burst out, looking down at his new friend. “Did I do wrong?”

“Right or wrong implies knowledge, you acted as you know best. Now you know better,” Snow Hound said, a hand smoothing down A-Ming’s hair. “What do you think you should do?”

A-Ming considered this and then gently set the frog down in Snow Hound’s lap. “Let you take care of him!”

“Pardon?” Snow Hound blinked at him.

“You take good care of me! And of Shifu and Mad Painter!” A-Ming said, eyes glowing with total faith. “Surely you can take care of my friend too! Thank you bofu!” he declared brightly and took off back toward the playground.

“Thank you, Uncle,” said a croaky voice from Snow Hound’s lap.

Snow Hound sighed down at where the frog was adjusting his little hat. “I actually have a lot of paperwork to finish. So what would be the most help is letting me go.”

“Of course,” Snow Hound said, bowing as best as he could

Mad Painter laughed.

“What?” Snow Hound turned to look at him.

“It’s sweet,” Mad Painter told him.

“What is?” He seemed more that he wanted to know what Mad Painter would say than he wanted to know what he meant.

“Everything.”


End file.
